Regenerative techniques have heretofore been applied in respect to soybeans. For example, Beversdorf, W. D., et al., Crop. Sci., 17:307-311 (1977) teaches culturing a soybean cell suspension to produce a meristematic center which does not resemble any stage of embryogenesis; and Christianson, M. L., et al., Science, 222:632-634 (1983) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,548,901 teach one case of generating a soybean plantlet from somatic embryo from axis from immature zygotic embryo but does not disclose that such plantlet was used to propagate a whole fertile plant.
None of the above are directed to propagating whole fertile plants from somatic embryos derived from embryogenic tissue from immature cotyledons. Moreover, none of these teach processing adaptable to isolating morphogenically competent protoplasts or to transforming embryogenic stem line or to selecting for resistance to anti-metabolites and other stresses or to culture associated genetic alterations, whereby unique whole fertile plants with useful new characteristics can be obtained and whereby seeds can be obtained from these plants for germination into plants.